Sam recognized several of the men in the group in front of him from Raihar. In fact, he saw the tavern keeper, trying to hide himself in the rear of the group. Sam’s eyes met his, and the man quickly looked down towards his feet. These men weren’t bad, he thought, they were just confused. Or ill-informed.
“You see, we’ve been told that you’re a group of spies for that Gray Man and that you’ll come back with more men and take control of our village. The pattern is normal enough. We hear all the time about towns and villages swallowed up by groups of Gray Man minions. At least, the lucky ones are swallowed up. Those who are useless except as a lesson are slaughtered or taken as slaves.” The men around him murmured their agreement. Two or three even shook the makeshift weapons they carried: rakes, axes, or simple cudgels.
“Like I say, we’re just simple folk,” the man continued, “just wanting to mind our own business and let others mind theirs. But when we need to, we can stand up and be men, when there’s no other choice.” He looked around at his companions, and then back at the four standing in front of him. “I’m afraid we can’t let you go back and bring word to your master. We can’t let you go and bring back men to harm our village. Just come back to town with us now and we’ll keep you secure until we can figure out what to do with ya.”
Dr. Walt wrung his hands. “I’m afraid that is not possible, my good man. You see, we are on a mission of the utmost urgency, but you seem to have misunderstood us. We are not followers of the Gray Man. In fact, quite the opposite. We oppose the Gray Man.”
“She told us you would say that. Of course, faced with all these men, you would try to slither your way out of things.”
“She?” Dr. Walt asked. “Who is ‘she?’”
The big man clenched his jaw. “Don’t you worry about who is who. We came all respectable like, not attacking you in your sleep like she suggested. We wanted to give you a chance to avoid some bruises. Now just come along quietly and no one gets hurt.”
Dr. Walt sighed loudly again. As he opened his mouth to speak, Rindu raised his hand again and spoke softly. “You men should go back to your homes. You do not know who you are talking to, do not know the impossibility of your task. Take your own advice, and go home quietly so that we do not have to cause you harm. Please, leave.”
Sam watched as the big man’s face twisted with his effort at controlling his anger. Looking around, Sam saw the men in the mob tense and clutch their weapons more firmly. He knew enough to know that violence would erupt any second. Frantically trying to figure out how to defuse the situation, he held up his hand and cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry, sir, but what was your name? I’m Sam. I’m sure that we can discuss this like reasonable adults.”
“My name’s not important. What’s important is that you come with us.” Distracted, the villagers relaxed just a hair.
“You tell ‘em, Malcolm!” one of the villagers shouted. He received a glare from the big man for his trouble.
“Malcolm, is it?” Sam continued. “I’m assuming that the ‘she’ you mentioned is that small, brown haired woman with the exotic look that we spoke to in the tavern yesterday.”
Malcolm’s face lost all emotion, his dark eyes showing surprise. “This is your last chance. Come with us or we will drag you back to the village, conscious or not.”
“The reason I ask,” Sam said in a rush, “is that she herself is a stranger. Why believe her over us? She could just be trying to harm us for some reason.” One or two of the men got thoughtful looks on their faces. Sam was hopeful that he could bring them around.
Counting quickly, Sam got to twenty-three. Perhaps there were more, but there were at least that many. If they attacked, many would be hurt, though Sam doubted that any in his party would be. “Please, just consider what I say. There is no reason we can’t just discuss this and come to a resolution.”
“You have a funny accent,” Malcolm said to Sam. “I think you are the outsider. I think what she told us was true. Enough talk. Come with us now, or be taken.”
For just a moment, the four party members looked at the mob and the mob looked at the party. Then, one of the men to the right of where the party members were gathered yelled something unintelligible and rushed forward to hit Rindu with a spiked pole.
Rindu stood relaxed as the man charged him. At the last moment, he shifted his body just slightly, just enough that the man’s weapon passed him, the wind of its passing rippling Rindu’s clothes. Sam couldn’t even be sure that the Zouy moved his hand, but suddenly the man attacking him dropped to the ground, unconscious. He caught the pole before it hit the ground, spun it smoothly, and drove it deep into the soil.
The other men stared slack-jawed for just a moment, and then everything devolved into chaos, all the men screaming and attacking whoever was closest. Sam saw Rindu push Dr. Walt back towards the tents before being attacked by several of the men.
Sam got only a glimpse of Rindu and Nalia begin their dance, hearing Rindu shout: “Do not kill them if you can help it” before his attention was taken by the three men attacking him.
At first, Sam felt as if he was frozen, not knowing what to do. The men were charging him, meaning to harm him, but this was not like sparring at all. This was real. He could die. Eyes growing wide, he saw the men coming at him as if he was standing outside his body and watching from afar.
Sam! Skitter screamed in his mind. Do something! He saw a blur as the hapaki launched himself onto the back of one of the men, scratching and clawing at him. The man dropped his weapon and started trying to tear the hapaki off.
Sam shook his head and forced his mind to focus. Skitter was risking himself for Sam, risking his very life. Sam had to do something.
The two other men were almost to him, but he went toward the man Skitter was clinging to. With a savage poking motion, he struck the man’s face with the end of his staff, hearing a cracking noise as his nose broke. Jump off! he sent to Skitter and saw the furry body leap off and scuttle into the undergrowth. Thank you! Sam sent after his friend. I’ll take it from here.
The man with the broken nose was wiping the tears from his eyes and the blood from his face with one hand while picking up his dropped weapon with the other. The other two men had gotten to Sam and were winding up to strike him, one of them with a short club and the other with a long-handled axe.
Sam ducked under the club and struck the man’s shin with his staff. Swirling toward the man with the axe, he blocked the two-handed swing, just below the axe head and kicked at the man’s midsection, bending him over. He was just able to sidestep a lunge from the broken-nosed man with the spiked end of his staff. Twirling the staff in a short circle, he smacked the other man’s weapon away and stepped back, preparing for the next round of attacks.
When a fourth man, this one with a wicked looking machete, joined the other three as they were recovering to attack again, Sam knew his skills with a long staff were not up to the challenge. Instead, instantly calling up his rohw as he had been practicing, he separated the staff into two halves mid-swing.
He surprised the man with the machete when he blocked the swing with his left stick. The blade made a metallic clang on the stick when it struck, vibrating so violently that it almost shook the weapon out of the man’s hand. At the same time, Sam was snapping the right stick outward to slap aside the axe that was coming in toward his head.
Ducking under the club again, he poked the club-wielder in the solar plexus to cause his head to come down and then kicked him just above the temple with the side of his foot, sending him sprawling. The turning motion Sam used to lend more power to the kick allowed him to whip out with both sticks. The man with the axe was just preparing to swing at Sam again, but one of the sticks struck him in the back of the head, causing him to drop bonelessly to the ground.
The other stick, still in motion twirled in a figure eight pattern, parrying aside the machete that was coming in towards Sam’s midsection and then quickly turning and com
ing up to strike the man in the abdomen. When the man bent down from the strike, Sam struck him on the back of the neck with the portion of the stick just above his hand, hoping that the force would not be enough to permanently injure the man, as it would be if he struck with the end of the stick. That man also dropped to the ground, unconscious.
The one remaining man, the one with the spiked staff, swung at Sam with both hands from the end of the staff like he was swinging a baseball bat for a homerun hit. Blood streaming from his nose, the man yelled a savage roar, trying to overpower Sam’s defenses. Sam, still in motion from the last man he defeated, turned his body like a windmill.
In the moment of battle, everything slowed down for Sam. He saw the man’s face, bloody and enraged. He saw his mouth wide, roaring with defiance. He saw the muscles on the man’s arms stand out as he swung the staff as hard as he could, wanting to crush Sam’s skull.
In a perfect moment of peace, he twirled his body around, rotating counterclockwise toward the incoming staff. As he turned, he whipped the stick in his left hand around to strike the staff, stopping its momentum and rattling the man’s arms. Then, continuing with his rotation, he struck the staff in exactly the same place with the right stick in a powerful overhand strike, snapping the staff in two pieces. As the half of the staff not being held spun off at an odd angle, Sam made one more turn, slowing his rotation to connect his left heel to the man’s face, knocking him aside and making him lose consciousness.
Sam stopped then, breathing heavily and looking around warily. He saw Rindu standing near Dr. Walt, looking like he had not moved in the time it took Sam to dispatch the four men. Nalia, too, was standing casually, shrapezi in their holders on her back. Dr. Walt appeared frazzled, apparently not used to being so near violence.
Inspecting the men he had fought, he was thankful to see that they were all breathing. The big man, Malcolm, sat in front of Rindu, dazed with his head in his hands.
Rindu stepped toward the man, and put his hand on the man’s head. His hand hovered over the man’s skin for a moment, moving in a slow circle, and then Rindu pulled his hand away. The man’s eyes cleared. “Will you kill us now?” Malcolm asked.
The Zouy looked down to the man, reached his hand down and, after the man had taken it, helped him to his feet. “No. As we tried to explain to you, we are not the Gray Man’s followers. We have used as little force as possible to prevent the death of any of your men, but many are injured. That was unavoidable. We will be leaving now. You are free to go as well.”
The man looked toward the ground, face flushed. “Maybe we were wrong about you. You obviously could’ve killed us all, if that was your goal. We will be asking some hard questions when we see that woman again.” He began to help some of his men up, the ones that were still conscious.
Rindu called out to him: “In the future, perhaps you should be more careful to whom you listen and what you are told. This could have been much worse for you. I hope you know this.”
The man nodded and muttered a “thank you” as he continued to rouse his men.
Turning to Sam, Rindu asked: “Are you hurt Sam? Did they strike you?”
Looking himself over, Sam was surprised to find that he wasn’t injured. He had not even been hit. “No, I’m all right, thanks to Skitter. I froze when those men came at me. If it wasn’t for him, I would be injured or dead. Thanks to Nalia’s training,” he bowed his head to her, “I was able to keep from hitting myself with my own weapon.”
He heard Nalia chuckle and whisper: “It is nice to know that you listen to my tutelage at least some of the time, you clumsy oaf.” It was a stage whisper, loud enough for him to hear. Loud enough for everyone to hear.
“You did well,” Rindu added. “I see that you did not use more force than necessary. The men will recover, though they will have to deal with the pain caused from their hastiness. I see, too, that you had no trouble in transforming your weapon. Very good.”
“Thank you. It felt right to do so.”
Dr. Walt sat down on the ground. “Well, that was…frightening. None of the men had any chance in getting past Rindu and Nalia, but still, it was quite a shock to my heart. I’ll need a few minutes to compose myself before we break camp and leave, if that’s ok with all of you.”
It was, and while the doctor rested, the other three took down the tents, packed them up, and prepared to leave. Finally, when everything was ready and all traces of the camp were erased, the rakkeben were called in. Rindu’s idea of sending them far afield to look for food was a good one. Things would have been complicated if the wolves would have entered the battle.
Packed up and mounted, the party set off, wanting to put some miles between them and the village of Raihar. As they started moving, Sam realized that things would never be the same. The Gray Man knew who they were and had sent at least one of his minions after them. He had no doubt that the woman he saw in the tavern was an agent of the Gray Man.
Crestfallen, he finally admitted to himself that he would have to confront, and defeat, the Gray Man. There was no getting out of it. If he tried to run, they would eventually find him. Their only chance was to attack him on their terms. Wistfully, he thought that if he faced the villain now, he and all his friends would die.
Determined to focus even more intently on his training, he rode toward his fate, trying to outrace his black thoughts.
None of the others noticed the shadow in a tree several hundred feet away. Ix watched as the party packed up and left, not moving and hardly breathing to keep from being noticed. She would have to go and report to the Gray Man what had happened. She had been hoping that she would have been able to join the battle at a crucial moment to kill one or both of the protectors. She saw quickly enough, though, that the men were no match for the three who fought. Even with the men distracting them, it would have been too much of a risk for her to enter the fray to snatch the old man.
With a shake of her head, she teleported away from the camp site and directly to her room in the Gray Fortress. She was not looking forward to bringing news of her failure to him. With a resigned shrug, she left her room, heading to where she knew the Gray Man would be.
Chapter 26
As the party settled into the routine of trying to cover the miles toward their destination, Sam took every opportunity he could to practice and perfect both his physical fighting abilities and his use of the rohw. Whenever possible, he practiced with the seed pods and he was beginning to improve, able now to keep three of them in motion, even when he was riding Shonyb. He still tried to transport himself home each night, hoping he would be able do it because of his developing abilities with the rohw, but had no success yet. Of course, he was still taking language lessons from Dr. Walt too, but those lessons would not save his life or get him home, so though they were interesting, he didn’t spend much of his spare time on that subject. Besides, Sam figured that speaking with everyone was practice enough.
“Master Rindu,” he said as he pulled up alongside the Zouy as they started off again after a midday break. “What was it that you did with that man, Malcolm, after we turned back their attack? He seemed injured and dazed, but you did something I couldn’t see well. Did you heal him with your rohw?”
“I was wondering when you would ask about that. The short answer is that, yes, I healed him partially with my rohw. Do you understand how healing can be done in this way?”
Sam paused to put his seed pods back into their box before turning his attention back to Rindu and answering. “I have read about people healing through vibrational energy. The basic idea, I think, is that many ailments or injuries are caused by blockages in the energy pathways within the body. A master can use his own energy to dissolve those blockages and make the person healthier.”
“Good. Yes, that is the basic idea. It is as it was with the porzul tree. There were several locations where the man’s energy was out of balance, so I readjusted things. I did not dissolve blockages so much as I rearranged the way the
energy was flowing inside his body.”
“You can do that?” asked Sam.
“I can. It is simply a matter of manipulating the energy flow within the other person’s body and making it do what it should be doing. I will teach you this, in time. Unfortunately, for now we must concentrate on defending and attacking, not on healing. There are a few more concepts you must understand yet before I can teach you any healing. It is the great tragedy of the universe that it is always harder to heal than to harm. Most often, killing is easiest of all. It saddens me, but some things cannot be changed. As it is said, ‘to wound is easy, to kill easiest of all, but to heal requires great skill and knowledge.’”
After a few minutes of silence, it was clear to Sam that Rindu was not going to speak further, so he settled back to a slower pace, letting Nalia pass him, waving a greeting in the process, and settling into a pace to keep even with Dr. Walt. The two chatted for the rest of the afternoon, going over histories and records, speaking of (and in) the different languages Sam was learning to research in Dr. Walt’s collection of records, and speaking fondly of their home and what they missed about it. By the time they stopped, Sam was homesick again, wondering how his mother was, as well as that silly cat of his.
After setting up camp, training with Nalia in combat, training with Rindu in vibrational energy use, and eating dinner, he found himself sitting on a log near Nalia. She was perched on a rock beside the fire they had built to chase away the night’s chill. Dr. Walt had retired to his tent to read and Rindu had gone off into the forest to meditate. Skitter was curled up near Sam’s feet, his breathing and occasional clicking or murmuring indicating that he was dreaming of whatever it was that hapaki dreamed of.
Sam looked to Nalia, off to his right. Her head was pointed off toward the forest, but her eyes could have been focused anywhere. He took a moment to look at her, really look at her, one of the few times he had ever taken the risk to do so. The last thing he wanted to do was to insult her or make her feel uncomfortable. If such a thing was even possible.
Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set Page 19
